I've lived with Microsoft Internet Explorer 7.0 for almost six months, using it daily. I like it, and it's gotten better with each of the three beta releases I've looked at. That said, I can't say I like it better than the current versions of Firefox or Opera, as these two just continue to display more innovation. It's not that they're extraordinarily superior to IE7 in terms of features; it's that the new Microsoft browser doesn't have any new features that are compelling enough to put it at the forefront. IE7 also continues to show some teething pains that, frankly, I don't expect in a beta this far along the development path.

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Before I go into details about what bothered me here, let me take a moment to explain exactly what version of IE7 I'm talking about here, because there's more than one. The version of IE7 to be bundled with Microsoft Vista will be known as IE7+. This new beta, the one I've tested here, is the one that will be used with Windows XP SP2; it's now known as IE7 for XP. Based both on contacts with Microsoft representatives and recent postings to the IE developer blog, we know that the code for the two browsers is largely the same and that they have mostly the same features, though the final version for Vista will have some Vista-only features, including enhanced network diagnostic abilities, Protected Mode, and parental controls.

Internet Explorer 7.0 for Windows XP Beta 3 seems a minor evolution with incremental feature and cosmetic improvements over Beta 2. The most important reason for Beta 2 users to upgrade to Beta 3 are the security enhancements made based on the latest Microsoft Cumulative Security Bulletin. Beyond this, beta 3 has a color scheme I find a bit more inviting and a cleaner, slightly more austere interface. There are other more substantive but still not earth-shattering improvements; users can now, for instance, add the e-mail button back to their toolbar (this automatically opens Microsoft Outlook by default from within IE). You can also now drag and drop tabs with this version of IE7, something already taken for granted with the other two browsers.
Favorites management and display remains unchanged, except for one notable upgrade: Instead of updating your RSS feeds one at a time, you can also refresh them all at once via the "refresh all" drop-down menu item under the Favorites/RSS feeds tab. Being able to tell which feeds you've actually read is easier as well, though I had to see the explanation provided at the Microsoft Team RSS Blog to understand this feature fully. Setting it up wasn't very intuitive, either (see my Internet Explorer 7 Beta 3 slideshow).

All those years spent using IE6 had left me and millions of others comfortableif boredwith the venerable browser. We at least knew where everything was on the interface without having to think about it. Though it has taken me months to get used to the look and feel of the new browser's interface, that hasn't been so bad. What has caused me some consternation are the rather basic and mundane issues I've noted in past betasissues that continue to crop up in this version.

Earlier betas had some issues with rendering pages on PC Magazine's Web site forums, among other pages. With Beta 3, some of these issues remain (though the specific issue of our forums pages has been fixed) That's unfortunate when you consider that competing browsers have no trouble with these pages; nor did IE 6, for that matter (again, see our Internet Explorer 7 Beta 3 slideshow for examples).

I also had to scratch my head about the quirky ways the new beta displays fonts, which is inconsistent and can vary by machine, too. Some display a particular page with no problems. I discovered this while reading Microsoft's own IE7 blog page: There were font errors in it when I viewed it with IE7, while the same page looked fine using IE6, Firefox, and Opera. It's hard to get to the bottom of this problem , since I can't see the source code for the style sheets IE7 used to generate these pages. I couldn't get to those pages via the references in the source code; I'm working with Microsoft now to sort this out and will update this piece if I learn anything of interest. Though these are relatively minor anomalies that can perhaps be easily fixed, the fact they're present this late in the game diminishes my overall opinion of the app.

Stay tuned, however; this is, after all, a beta. With the manpower available at Microsoft, pulling out all the stops may yield a much improved final product (which they hope to make final sometime later this year). You'll find the latest version available at Microsoft.

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Davis D. Janowski is Lead Analyst for Web Applications and Software, charged with covering the likes of Google, Microsoft, Yahoo!, and millions of other Internet and Web companies. Prior to this, he served as Section Editor for Consumer Networking, GPS Products, Phones & PDAs (Mobile and VoIP); Associate Editor for Networking Infrastructure; and Associate Editor for Internet Infrastructure. Before joining PC Magazine, Janowski worked as a medical editor, covering epidemiology and infectious diseases, receiving training at the Centers for Disease Control. At one point, he acted...
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